


Try

by ohgodmyeyes



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Burns, Crying, Cuddling, Darth Vader Redemption, F/M, Forgiveness, Healing?, Human Disaster Anakin Skywalker, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy, Kissing, Nightmares, Nihilistic Romance?, One Shot, Oral Sex, Reader-Insert, Redemption?, Regret, Romance, Scars, Self-Destructive, Self-Indulgent, Smut, Suitless Darth Vader, Suitless Darth Vader Is Hot, Trauma, Unhealthy Relationships, Vaginal Sex, Weird Romance, sexual healing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-07
Updated: 2020-02-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:00:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,256
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22600639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohgodmyeyes/pseuds/ohgodmyeyes
Summary: Over a year ago, Anakin kidnapped you from your room after murdering his wife. He put you through a hellish ordeal in the midst of his own mental collapse, and in the end, you only escaped from his madness because you were very lucky.You’ve been having nightmares about him since, though— and one night, you seem to have one that is especially vivid. Ithasto be a dream, however, because Anakin is dead....Isn’t he?An 'epilogue' toWorthless.
Relationships: Anakin Skywalker/Reader, Darth Vader/Reader
Comments: 25
Kudos: 123





	Try

The dreams happened nearly every night, and they were terrifying. 

It made sense that you would have them, after what you’d been through, but you hated them all the same. You thought they’d have stopped by now— it had been over a year since you walked to safety down that dirt road— however, they persisted. Sometimes they were about the car: Seeing it burn; knowing that if you hadn’t had to pee at just the right moment, you’d be dead like him. Other times they featured the motel room: That ratty little place with the radiator to which he would attach you by a set of handcuffs, and the shower out of which he’d dragged you to punish you for lying to him.

Once in a while you’d have a dream about him that seemed nice: A dream about his hair gathered in your fist, or one about jumping up eagerly on top of him. Those nicer dreams, however, were both insidious, and far less plentiful than the ones about fire or abuse.

Perhaps predictably, the dreams you experienced most often were ones in which he was taking you. You’d wake in a panic after hearing his voice whisper desperately and aggressively for you to shut the fuck up; after feeling his knife press into your stomach as he ordered you to dress. Those were the ones you hated most.

You’d hated Anakin’s stupid dreams, too. Was this how they had made him feel? 

No wonder he’d lost his mind.

It was time to sleep yet again; in fact, it was well past the time you should have been in bed, but you simply hated going there. You’d moved, of course, after your journey with him— to a new apartment; to a new job. You hadn’t minded fucking for money before Anakin; the idea of it still didn’t bother you now, but you simply could not take the chance that another one of your clients might end up being like _him_. You knew, now, that you’d been highly unprofessional in your dealings with Ani— he’d been too beautiful for you not to be tempted to skirt your own rules... not that his attractiveness had ever been a very good excuse for it.

You had supposed, when you first escaped, that you could go back to the same profession... however, it felt safer not to, now.

Feeling safe was of utmost importance to you, these days.

After locking the door three different ways and switching on the tiny, motion-activated alarm you now liked to hang on the knob, you checked that each of your windows was secure. After those, you walked into your bedroom (you checked the window there, as well), and took a few deep breaths as you stared fearfully at your bed.

_”Dreams aren’t real, Anakin.”_

Your own words to him reverberated through your head. No, dreams weren’t real— but they could certainly be frightening. Was your experience, now, at all like the one he’d had, before he’d killed his wife? You hoped not, but at the same time, you wished you’d understood his fear a bit better while he was alive. Maybe you could have helped him more.

 _He was beyond help,_ you reasoned with yourself. _Besides that, helping him was never your job— all you were ever supposed to do was choke him, hit him, and fuck him. You shouldn’t have let him sleep in your room, you stupid—_

You had to pinch your own arm to cut off your internal dialogue. Those thoughts were not useful to you; in fact, they were an enormous detriment. The best thing you could do for yourself was to stop thinking about it; stop thinking about Anakin. 

Ani was dead, now, and he’d been a murderer on top of that. You’d never been responsible for him— especially not after he took you. However, to see him cry with your mind’s eye made you feel an overwhelming sense of guilt in spite of your near-constant fear, and thinking about fucking him still made you wet. 

What the hell had he done to you?

You laid down, finally, and turned off the lamp by the bed. You sighed into the darkness as you prepared to lay awake with your mind racing. Unconsciousness was merciful tonight, though: It came for you quickly. This was both a relief, and something you had come to dread.

...It also didn’t last very long.

_”Liar.”_

Your eyes shot open, but you couldn’t see anything. _Another dream about the shower,_ you told yourself as you tried to focus on the the ceiling. That was what he’d called you— a liar— when he’d found the fork you’d hidden with the intention of stabbing him. You’d been about to shower together at the motel, he had spotted it, and it had infuriated him. You’d only wanted to get away from him, which he had seemed to take as an insult; a severe violation of his trust. He had hit you, screamed at you, and choked you— then, you’d fucked him, because you couldn’t think of a better way to get him to calm down.

You closed your eyes again and tried to go back to sleep. 

That was when you felt something very hard and very cold press into the side of your neck.

“Liar,” you heard again, but this time you were definitely awake.

“No,” you whispered. It couldn’t possibly—

 _”Yes,”_ answered Anakin, in a husky growl which sounded more ragged than when you’d last encountered him— when he’d been alive.

Anakin was no longer alive.

“Who are you?”

“You know who I am.”

“You’re dead.”

A dark, foreboding laugh— again, raspier than you remembered it being— followed by, “Wouldn’t you just love it if I was?”

You were still staring at the ceiling, frozen. You hadn’t entirely noticed it, but your eyes had adjusted quickly to the dim light. Finally, he stood up from where he’d been kneeling beside your bed, and pointed his gun at your face.

You whispered his name the same way you had when his car had gone up in flames. He heard you, this time. Then, he waved the weapon at you. 

“Don’t fucking call me that!”

“Then what do I call you?” You were shaking— part of you was sure you were still dreaming. However, the state in which Anakin appeared before you now was nothing like the one in which you’d last seen him... and you highly doubted your mind could have ever conjured something like this.

He looked, quite appropriately, as if he’d been through hell.

His face— the face you’d once admired for all its mournful beauty— was close to unrecognizable. You knew his nose; it was elegant, as it had always been. His eyes, too, were distinctive— pale and blue and filled to the brim with pain and rage. His lips, though, had been ravaged by flame; they no longer appeared to possess even an iota of the silky softness you remembered from the kisses he’d forced on you at that motel. 

He snarled at you; when he did, the way those lips curled back to bear his teeth deeply unsettled you: They’d been practically melted, along with his jaw and much of the bottom part of his face. The hair you’d once loved to wrench and tug was completely gone now, and did not look to be coming back. To its credit, his skin had clearly reached an advanced stage of healing— it _had_ been many, many months— but the scars borne of injuries like this, you knew, would never truly go away.

Most of him, by now, was once again that beautiful alabaster hue you remembered slapping cherry-red on more than one occasion. However, as opposed to being clear and smooth, it was gnarled in several places, now— corrugated; adulterated by sharp ridges, and tangles of twisted dermis which did not look like they quite belonged.

His appearance had been utterly enrapturing before; now, a better way to describe it would have been jarring. You didn’t dare say that to him, however— you were positive that he already knew.

He hadn’t answered you when you’d asked what he should be called now, so instead you tried, “What do you want?”

Now he smiled— which was somehow worse than his snarl— and answered, “You.”

“What?”

“You— I want _you_.”

You shut your eyes as if doing so might will him and his gun to disappear. When you knew it hadn’t worked, you started, “I don’t underst—”

He interrupted you, “You left me.”

You opened your eyes and began to counter, “I didn’t—”

_”You fucking left me!”_

“I couldn’t have done anything!”

He leaned down and touched you with the barrel of the gun again; this time, it grazed your chest. Where had he gotten a gun? More importantly, how was he alive?

“Do you know what it felt like?” He asked this quietly, but you knew he was enraged. 

“What?”

“Being in that car— knowing you were there, and that you wouldn’t help. _After everything I did for you._ ” He shook his head. “You hurt me. That’s why I’m here for you.”

“But how did you—?”

He growled; yelled as loudly as he could in his worn-out rasp, “I fucking crawled!”

“To the hospital...?”

“To the road. And then I waited. I thought I was going to fucking die.”

You truly thought he had. “Anakin, I—”

 _”Stop fucking calling me that!”_ He seemed to object strongly to his own name, but still did not offer you an alternate way of addressing him.

You whispered, “I’m sorry,” anyway.

He ignored your apology and continued, “It took hours for someone to find me, and every passing second was excruciating. When they did, they took me to the hospital, and— eventually— I lied to them about who I was.” He laughed chillingly, “They thought I was a homeless person.”

“But what about your wife...?”

He narrowed his eyes into a glare. “I’m a much better liar than you are.”

You didn’t doubt that, really. He must have been in the hospital for a long time, you thought— and he’d had to have been silent, for the first little while anyway. How long had he had to concoct a new identity; a lie as to how he came to be so badly burned? You supposed any and all evidence of who he actually was would have been destroyed in the fire— and his burns would certainly have rendered him unrecognizable, even to somebody who was looking for him specifically.

The only identifying feature he had retained, really, was his missing right arm— and he’d not replaced his prosthesis, if the limply-hanging shirt sleeve on his right side was any indication. How many men were missing half a limb? Likely not an altogether insignificant portion of homeless veterans, you reflected. Anakin could certainly have pulled that act off easily. With lots of time to gather his thoughts, it was utterly believable that he’d deceived the medical staff involved in his healing. How long had he been planning to find you, though?

You finally asked, “What are you going to do?”

He answered you, “I’m going to take what’s mine.”

Before you could say anything to that, he climbed up onto your bed and straddled you with his knees. He did not lower his weapon.

Was he just going to shoot you? Without thinking, “Ani, please—”

He pressed the barrel up under your chin; corrected you without using words.

“—I’m sorry,” you said.

He pulled it back again. “Are you going to listen this time?”

You nodded.

With utmost disdain, he curled his gnarled lip and hissed, “Good girl.”

“Can I sit up?”

“Yes,” he told you, after taking a moment to think. He slowly dismounted you so that he was sitting next to you on the bed, on his knees. If he’d been about to shoot you in the face, he had graciously changed his mind... but, he still did not take his gun off of you.

“Where did you get that?” you asked as you pulled yourself upright.

“Fuck off,” he answered, which you supposed was good enough. Then, “If I put it down, are you going to be stupid?”

You shook your head; no, you weren’t going to risk being shot right now if you could help it. Part of you was still trying to convince your brain that it was dreaming; still mired in an uneasy sleep. This couldn’t actually be happening, could it?

He placed the gun on your nightstand, and reached out with his hand to touch your face. He did it in just the same way he always had before— however, it felt significantly different now that his skin had been decimated. Of course his palm had burned, you thought— he’d used it to try to put out the flames that had been eating the rest of him. You tried to keep still, but it was difficult not to try to move your face away.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. Suddenly his voice was very gentle. “Doesn’t it remind you of us? Of being together?” He leaned in; examined your expression.

“I— I don’t—“

“Shh,” he interrupted, and took his hand from off your face to grasp the edge of the blanket which had still been resting on your legs. He pulled it away.

You were completely uncovered, now— you never slept with clothes. There was a chill in the air, and it gave you goosebumps. You simply sat; you didn’t speak, or move.

“You still look the same,” he observed. 

You didn’t know what to say to that. He certainly didn’t look the same.

“You always used to tell me I was disgusting,” he continued. “Tell me now. Tell me how seeing me makes you feel.”

You struggled for words, because what the fuck were you supposed to say? You focused on his eyes; on the fine point of his nose. You looked at his shoulders, and tried to examine his chest through the tailoring of his shirt. He was, you couldn’t help but notice, as broad and imposing as he ever was— how much effort had he put into readying himself to come and do this to you again? Had it been painful? You found yourself curious as to what he might look like, now, beneath his clothes. 

...What the hell was wrong with you?

Your jaw began to tremble; your eyes filled with tears. “I don’t think you’re—”

 _”Liar!”_ He raised his hand, but he didn’t hit you with it. He clenched it into a fist in the air instead, and let it drop to his side. It trembled. Was he showing restraint?

“I always thought you were—”

“—Fucking hideous?”

You started to cry; you couldn’t help it. Why was he doing this to you? He leaned in closely— very closely. You could feel his breath; see every line, ridge, and patch marring the skin of his badly-damaged face. He placed his hand on your neck, now; he was gentle at first, but his palm still felt very different. You imagined the way its skin must have blistered as the flames from the car had tortured it.

He began to squeeze. “You were supposed to help me,” he said.

Through tears, you looked at him; through his hand gripping your neck, you tried to tell him that there was nothing you could have done. He squeezed harder.

_”You were supposed to help me fix it!”_

You raised your own two hands to try to pry his single one off of you. He was still far too strong for you to make him do or stop doing anything, which was why you were grateful to him when he let go. At that point, you asked as calmly as you could manage, “How was I ever going to do that?”

He seemed to be trying to be calm, too, but he was failing. “You were supposed to fucking _be there._ ”

That didn’t make sense, but nothing he’d wanted from you had ever made sense. “What do you want me to do now?” you asked. What had he even come here for?

“I want you to feel what I feel,” he said. After a pause, he added, “I want you to see what you did to me— I want you to see it like _I_ have to see it.”

Dread welled up inside of you; made itself comfortable amongst your shock and fear. “What are you going to do?”

“Whatever I have to do to make you understand,” he said, in a voice that had begun to waver. Was he sad, or unsure? Or did it just hurt to speak for too long, now that he’d almost burned to death? 

Very suddenly, his hand shot to the back of your head and gripped your hair. You’d not forgotten how that felt. Then— he was still beside you; still very close— he imposed on you a kiss which was nothing like anything you had ever experienced. It turned out that those lips of his felt just the way they looked, now: Rough and ragged, and no longer in possession of the petal-like softness you remembered. They seemed to have become thinner and harder than they’d once been... more like warmed-up leather than live, human skin.

You waited for him to stop, but he didn’t— instead, he prodded with his tongue until your mouth opened to let it in, and then he kept on ravaging. Inexplicably, you took comfort in the fact that his tongue, at least, felt much the same as it had before. It was as familiar to you as the way he twisted your hair in his fist, in fact. You kissed back, because there was nothing else you could do.

Finally, he pulled away. Once he did, he looked your body up-and-down and snarled with more than a hint of jealousy, “No... no, _you_ haven’t changed a bit.”

You nearly used his name again, but you stopped yourself this time. “I’m sorry,” you said. “I wanted to help you, I just—”

“You just hated me too much. Isn’t that right?”

That wasn’t far from the truth, really— but you’d also been frightened, shocked, and overwhelmed by his having kidnapped you. “I was scared,” you said. That was honest.

“‘Scared,’” he mocked. “I was scared, too— but you didn’t want to be scared _with_ me. You wanted to get rid of me.”

That made you angry. “I wanted to get _away_ — you fucking took me!”

“It was your fault she died!”

You began to feel even more helpless than you had already. Arguing with Anakin had never been fruitful— he didn’t seem like he was accustomed to taking ‘no’ for an answer. Indeed, he grasped his shirt by its hem, and heaved it off over his head in a single motion. He did it as though he were proving a point.

Your eyes widened; you gaped soundlessly. You couldn’t help it: He looked as if someone had poured acid on him.

 _”You did this to me,”_ he accused as he stared back at you.

“I didn’t—”

“You could have helped me!”

You shook your head; tried to will your tears away. You could tell him whatever you wanted to tell him; all he was going to hear were excuses, because he couldn’t understand anything else. He couldn’t seem to grasp why you’d left him; worse than that, he still blamed you for what he had done to his wife. He was exactly the same type of crazy he’d been over a year ago, you realized.

Without knowing why— perhaps because touching him had always seemed to placate him before— you reached out with your hand and put it on his chest. It truly didn’t feel anything like him, except for how very warm he was. The same uneven ridges and patches of twisted skin which marred his face also violated his chest and stomach, except to an even more severe degree. You imagined the shirt he had been wearing in the car burning; pictured its tightly-woven fibres melting and sticking to him. The edges of some of the burnt swaths were still a vulnerable, raw-looking shade of pink.

Being in that car had to have been sheer agony.

“I can barely feel that, you know,” he said quietly. 

You didn’t answer; you didn’t have any words to answer with. Instead, you dragged your hand downward; let it trail over a hardened, muscular expanse which ought to have been very familiar, but wasn’t anymore. As you reached his stomach— you’d always loved his stomach— you found your finger was still unable to keep itself from catching his bellybutton. Every other time you’d ever touched him this way, you’d played with it... and so you did that now, too. 

He felt it, at least— you knew because he gasped. 

You looked back up at his face, and almost expected to see the Anakin you’d once been used to seeing. Your eyes were met instead with the burnt, hairless visage which had woken you so suddenly from your sleep. You couldn’t blame him for being angry, really— but you didn’t think he should be angry at _you._ ...Or did you?

“I’m sorry, Ani,” you said despite yourself— forgetting about his objection to his name.

He reached back out with his hand and you flinched, because you were sure he was going to grab or smack you with it. He didn’t, however— he simply replaced it on the side of your face. You knew what to expect: This time, the texture of his palm did not cause you to recoil. Besides that, his warmth was— again— familiar. You remembered, now, how attracted you’d once been to that.

You’d been very attracted to Anakin, in fact, before he had completely lost it on you.

Your hand was still resting on his abdomen, so you pressed your fingers gently into his sinewy flesh. You imagined him hardening his body again after the fire; pictured his new face twisted in pain and determination. 

You sat still, touching one another. You thought he’d have been beating you to a bloody pulp by now; in fact, you were sure that was why he’d come: To show you his wounds, force you to experience some measure of the pain he’d felt as he had burned, and then perhaps kick, choke, or shoot you to death.

You did not expect him to cry.

He must not have expected it either, because he withdrew his hand from your face and covered his own eyes with it; tried to wipe away the evidence of his brokenness. If he still couldn’t control his anger, you thought, then surely he couldn’t be very good at controlling any of his other feelings, either. You left your hand where it was.

He’d been quiet since your last apology; finally, he said a bit more shakily (and much less aggressively) than you’d have anticipated, “Stop using my name... _please._ ”

“I’ll try,” you said. You would try— you knew that he was volatile, and unlikely to remain docile for long. You certainly didn’t want to make him more angry than he had to be.

You were feeling curious all of a sudden, and since you knew you couldn’t get him to leave until he wanted to, you leaned toward him. You let your hand feel its way around to his side. You dragged your palm up his ribcage; registered the sharp contrast between the texture of your own skin and his. How long had he been collapsed on the floor of the car, among the flames? You had been so sure he was dead when you began to walk away that you didn’t think twice about leaving. You began to feel palpable guilt; however, you did your best to force it out of your mind.

After all, Anakin was a monster— all that fire had done, really, was change his outside to match his inside. That was what you thought, anyway.

He asked you, “What are you doing?”

“Touching you,” you said. Shouldn’t it have been obvious?

“...Why?” Had he not anticipated your curiosity?

“I wanted to know what you feel like now,” you said.

A hint of that snarl again; then, “What do I feel like?”

You guessed that he expected— maybe even wanted— you to say something along the lines of ‘fucking awful’ or ‘like dried meat’, but that wasn’t your first thought.

“You feel different,” you said.

His jaw trembled. 

“It’s not bad,” you added. You were trying to keep him calm, of course— however, you still weren’t lying. The new landscape of scar tissue covering his body was very different from the unblemished smoothness of which he’d been robbed... but, it wasn’t unpleasant to touch. It was unusual; fascinating. He’d always fascinated you, truth be told. Just never quite like this.

“Stop fucking lying to me,” he whispered.

You countered simply, “I’m not lying.”

You suddenly came under the impression that, perhaps, he was not as emotionally prepared for this as he might have believed himself to be. Maybe, you thought, he’d spent too much time readying his body and not enough steeling his mind. You wondered if you might use that to your advantage.

Kindly, “I always thought you were beautiful.”

_”What?”_

It occurred to you that you’d never told him how you actually felt about his physical appearance, when he’d still looked like himself. That, though, had never been what he wanted. It only dawned on you presently: It wasn’t inconceivable that he would have lacked the self-awareness to realize he’d once been quite handsome.

“Until you... did what you did,” you began very carefully, “I liked being with you. You were wonderful, really. I... only ever said the things I said to you because you told me that was what you wanted— I was just doing my job.” As long as you were being honest, you thought you might as well tell him, “You were always one of my favourites, you know.” 

He seemed to repress a visceral reaction to that; a sob, or a gasp. Carefully, you raised the hand not touching his side, and reached up to touch his face. You were very gentle. Slowly, you ran your hand around to the back of his head. With the exception of a raised line or two of scar tissue, that part of him was still smooth— it felt nice. 

Anger flashed through his eyes, and it frightened you a moment because he was so close. However, he didn’t touch you again; not yet. First, he said to you quietly, “You’re supposed to be horrified.”

You shrugged; it was all you could do.

Then, he demanded a little bit more loudly, _”Why aren’t you horrified?”_

You didn’t rightly know, but the fact was that you weren’t. Right now you felt sad for him— along with endeared by his apparent vulnerability, and inexplicably attracted to his new physicality. You found yourself feeling less afraid of him, in spite of the ire in his voice... and in spite of the gun on the nightstand.

“It must be that you’re not horrifying,” you suggested.

“How can you say that?” He asked this as if you’d insulted him.

“I told you,” you said. “You were always one of my favourites.”

Before he could start to cry again, you stood up on your knees and placed your other hand on his head, as well. You stroked behind his ear with your thumb, and took your gaze off of his eyes to examine the rest of his face a moment, too. _No,_ you thought. _He’s not horrifying, or hideous— he’s been hurt, and it shows. It isn’t ugly._ And it wasn’t, even if you wanted it to be.

He was still badly-damaged in myriad ways; however, he was not so much a monster as he was a victim of one. It had attacked him from inside his own head, you realized, and he had never stood a chance.

His eyes were welling up again, and he looked as if he were about to say something. You interrupted him with a kiss to those unfamiliar, gnarled lips of his. He reciprocated, although this time he waited for you to prod him with your tongue first. You closed your eyes as you snaked into his mouth. He made, then, the first contented-sounding noise you’d heard from him since he had kissed your hand in that motel room, all those months ago.

This time, it suited him a bit more.

In the same way you always used to— it was almost automatic, actually— you took one hand from off his head and reached down between his legs. You weren’t sure what you were going to find; had no way of discerning how much of him, exactly, that fire had eaten up. You discovered a pleasant surprise, however: A very familiar hardness; impressive given what his body been through, and certainly not something you were going to question or complain about.

The strange mixture of pity, affection, and sensuality he inspired in you had overtaken you. In spite of everything, you found yourself wanting him as much as you had before you’d learned what he was capable of in his fear and rage.

You weren’t sensing either of those right now.

He was just sad— sad, and apparently hungry for someone’s touch; someone’s affection. Perhaps, even, someone’s understanding. He might have come with a gun instead of money; he might have come bald, and badly-scarred. However, you found yourself more willing to try for him, this time— he was _finally_ making it easy for you.

He drew back suddenly. After swallowing hard at an apparent lump in his throat, he said to you, “You kept the boots.”

“What?”

“The boots I bought you— they’re in your front closet. I saw them.”

 _No, Ani, please don’t ask me to kick you..._ “I don’t want to—”

“—No, no,” he interrupted. “I don’t want that. I meant...” He didn’t seem to know how to communicate what he was thinking; however, he tried anyway, “...I like that you still have them.”

“Why?”

“It means you didn’t forget about me.”

Against all logic and your own better judgement, you laughed— loudly. “How the fuck could I ever _forget_ about you?” You smiled as you asked.

He laughed back— you’d never heard him really, actually laugh. Again, it suited him, for now. “You’re right,” he admitted. Then, his face fell; he looked to think very deeply for a moment. “...I’m sorry, you know.”

You were fairly sure you knew he meant that he was sorry for everything— all of it. “It’s alright,” you told him. You couldn’t forgive him for killing his wife; it wasn’t up to you to do that. You could, however, forgive him for what he had done to you. 

So, you did.

You did, primarily because it was healing for you. You also forgave him, though, because he seemed to need forgiveness— and you might have been the only person alive who ever could or would give it to him. It felt good to do that for Anakin, in spite of everything.

“Do you mean that?” He whispered this. It was not the first time he’d ever asked you.

“I do,” you answered, and it _was_ the first time your affirmative response to that question had been truthful.

He kissed you again, at that, and you relished the way his lips felt on yours; the contrast, really, was charming. You lowered your other hand, too, and began to undo his belt— another graciously familiar action. He gasped into you once more you as you slid his pants down over his hips. Then, he braced himself on the bed with his good arm and broke your kiss briefly to kick them off over the edge. When he came back up to resume kissing you, he grasped your hip in his hand, and pulled your body close to his. He wrapped what remained of his other arm around your waist; pressed the scarred and re-scarred stump of it into you desperately.

You wrapped your arms around him in return, and ground your hip into his cock. You noticed more corrugation; more raised bumps, and incongruent patches of skin as you ran your hands over his back. You found, strangely, that you very much liked them: They seemed to have almost changed the inside of him, somehow, as opposed to having simply warped to match it.

He pulled back to whisper into your ear, _”Lie down,”_ and this time you did with no hesitation. It was unlike any other time you’d ever been with him: Not only had no money been exchanged; you also were not terrified, or unwilling. Those two circumstances were the only ones under which you had ever had sex with him before, and that made tonight very different. 

Different, like him. 

He crawled up between your legs, gripped you firmly by the hip, and ran his tongue along your folds. You were aching for him, by now. You made a noise; he found your clit, and he started to lick circles around it. He went slowly at first; almost lazily, but as he began to taste more of your excitement, he quickened his pace and changed his rhythm. Now and then, he would stop to thrust his tongue as deeply inside of you as he could, apparently very eager to drink up the feelings he now realized he could inspire in you.

You became louder, and reached down to stroke the back of his head; gingerly finger his scars. He tightened his hold on you as you began to buck up into him, and almost seemed to hum into your cunt as you submitted yourself to his attention. You didn’t suppose you’d ever seen him so happy— you found that you liked seeing him happy.

You also liked the way he used his mouth on you. You liked it so much that you spoke his name as you gushed into him, and scratched as gently as you could manage at the skin on his head. The last thing you wanted to do right now was hurt him; however, he was making every part of you clench so happily that you couldn’t help but claw at him, at least a little bit.

He didn’t seem to mind: Rather boldly— he appeared to know he’d excited you more than enough for it to work— he placed his new lips around the stiffened nub of your clit and began to suck on it. You cried out and clasped your free hand atop his as you finally gave into him completely.

He lapped you up, dug his nails into you possessively for a brief moment, and then clambered up the length of your body. He began to kiss at your neck and breasts; the sensation of those fantastically unique lips dancing across your skin gave you goosebumps. He was incredible at this, you reflected— and anyway, you hadn’t been with anyone else since he’d taken you unwillingly on his strange journey to nowhere. 

You hadn’t wanted anyone else... and up until now, you hadn’t wanted him, either.

But again, this seemed to be yet another version of Anakin: One you hadn’t met before tonight, but one you were finding you very much liked, in spite of what you knew about the rest of him. You weren’t thinking, now, about the rest of him... and you hoped he wasn’t, either.

Your lips met again, finally, and after letting you taste what he’d done to you for a few languid moments, he used his good arm to brace himself above you. He was still so strong— but you weren’t frightened of him; not right now.

“Please?” he asked. It shocked you that he would ask permission. However, perhaps this was that version of Ani you’d envisioned who happened to be a gentleman: The version of him who had won over his wife; the side of him which, you reflected, would have been easy for nearly anyone to fall in love with— yourself included.

“Of course, Ani,” you whispered. You used his name again without thinking; however, he’d ceased his objections: He simply smiled— a bit sadly, maybe— and shifted to allow you to guide him precisely where you both wanted him to go. Once you had, you placed your arms around him and sighed happily. You were grateful that he was still able to do this; somehow, you were also grateful that he still wanted to do it with you. You’d been through a lot with him, you reflected.

He pushed into you just the same way you remembered him doing before— it would have been impossible to deny that you’d enjoyed it, even then: His cock was exquisite, and the way he used it both surprised and thrilled you. He lowered himself down as gently as he could to kiss you eagerly as he began to rut and thrust; you realized that it had been a while for the both of you... and that you both seemed to have desperately needed it. 

You told him so breathlessly between kisses. He answered you by groaning heartily, and pressing himself as deeply as he could into your cunt as he released his pent-up affections into you. You received them without hesitation; tried again not to hurt him as your fingers curled inward with the depth of your satisfaction, and your nails dug wantonly into his scars. 

When he collapsed on top of you, all you wanted was to hold him: Pull him in more closely than you ever imagined you would want to. You did. He buried his face in your neck and kissed it; you stroked his head with one hand, and wrapped the other around his formidable shoulders. 

“Thank you,” he said into your ear. “Thank you, my love.”

Those words were really for you, this time; you could tell, because Anakin was really here. Was this all he had wanted, the whole time? Why the beatings; why the burning and choking? Why couldn’t he have gotten this— or that, even— from his wife? 

Maybe he’d been too ashamed, then, you thought. Maybe she’d regretted letting his sickness fester for so long, and had grown too frightened of him to help him before it was too late. You couldn’t really know. You did know that you weren’t scared of him, though, and as for Ani himself— he couldn’t have hidden anything from you, now, if he’d tried: Inside, or out. 

You lay with him this way for a while— it almost felt as if time had stopped. Eventually, he slid off of you and you wrapped yourselves around one another, side by side. You considered, very carefully, how it felt.

Finally, you ventured, “Anakin...” And when he only held you more tightly, you took that as permission to continue, “...They never realized that you took me, you know.”

“What do you mean?” He murmured this; he’d been nearly asleep. 

“I mean, I wasn’t gone long enough for anyone to think I didn’t mean to leave. I... never told anyone about what happened.” Perhaps it hadn’t been ethical, exactly, but you hadn’t wanted to speak of it— any of it. When you realized you had the opportunity to make that choice for yourself, you’d made it, however selfishly. But maybe now, your decision could help Anakin, too.

“You never...?”

“No. And you said you lied at the hospital, didn’t you?”

“For months,” he confirmed. He sounded a bit more alert, now.

You took a deep breath. “...I love you, Anakin.”

He tilted his head up toward you; stared into your eyes with an enchanting mixture of hope and sadness. “I love you too,” he said. It sounded like a confession, but he smiled after he’d finished saying it... and his smiling did not remotely unsettle you.

Somehow, Ani was more handsome to you now than he’d ever been before— even when he’d still been in possession of his full lips, unblemished skin, and pretty blonde tresses. He was more beautiful to you because you knew, now, that his physical decimation could very well be made into his second chance: At love; at life.

Nobody got a second chance like this— ever.

That had to mean something.

“Stay with me,” you said.

He seemed to become even more attentive, at this. “What?”

 _”Stay with me.”_ You shouldn’t have said it; you should certainly not have meant it... but, you did. You could even leave together, you thought, if you had to. Nobody knew who he was; if you went very far away, perhaps no one would ever find out. It was a risk— Anakin was still a wanted man, after all— but it was one you suddenly seemed to be willing to take.

“If anyone ever finds me, it’ll ruin your life, too,” he pointed out. 

You kissed his head; laughed, “You already ruined my life, Ani.” That sounded rather morbid, but it was true: You’d been mired in a miserable panic since escaping him. Having seen so very much of him— all of him— you weren’t sure you could be with anyone else anymore, even if you had wanted to. You certainly couldn’t be alone.

Completely unintentionally, it seemed that you and Anakin had forged a very intimate bond— one which you knew it would be infinitely more painful to break, now, than to attempt to maintain. 

He had tightened his grip on you, but he hadn’t actually said anything in response to your macabre observation. Now, he pressed his face back into you and sighed. 

“How can I fix it?” he asked. He always wanted to ‘fix’ things. You’d thought that none of this could ever be fixed; however, perhaps you’d been wrong.

“Just stay,” you reiterated. What would you have done without one another, at this point? 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said. He sounded ashamed of himself.

You thought; glanced over at your nightstand. “If you try,” you said, “I’ll shoot you.” It wasn’t a threat.

“Do you promise?” He sounded gravely serious.

“I promise, Ani.” You cradled him in your arms. You didn’t really think you’d ever have to shoot him— not now— however, you knew he needed you to be prepared to rescue the both of you from any residual darkness which might be residing in his heart. It was a sacrifice you’d have to make in order to love him, and you already loved him. You didn’t have a choice.

“Alright,” he said. “If you promise, then I’ll stay.” The twisted irony present in the fact that _you_ were now the one imploring _him_ not to leave did not escape him: He laughed, and that made you laugh, too. It was a relief.

You couldn’t think of a more unlikely way to fall in love; however, you’d done it. As you lay with Anakin that night— holding him as you laughed at yourselves; becoming familiar with the new landscape of his body— you felt strangely hopeful for the future. You also felt incredibly grateful to Anakin for having had the persistence and determination to track you down, and show you what he’d become... because what he’d become was more beautiful than anything he’d ever been before.

You fell asleep stroking his scars, and relishing the sound of his raspy, halting breaths.

It was worth it, you thought, to take a chance on Ani.


End file.
